Dracula’s Cousins: Los Murciélagos (the bats) are Living in My House

Monday was a rainy overcast day. I had planned to do my laundry but due to the lack of sunshine and lack of running water my plan was foiled. Instead, I decided to do some lesson planning, study Spanish, read and hang around with my new family. My family invited me to have lunch with them (muy amable) and they were serving Sopa de Cerdo. In Nicaragua, I have noticed a common meal for lunch is soup (Sopa de Pollo o Sopa de cerdo…translation: chicken soup or pig soup). Los ingredientes son (the ingredients are): repollo (cabbage), zanahoria (carrots), patata (potatos), cebolla (onion), plátano amarillo (yellow plantain), tomate (tomato), cerdo o pollo (pig or chicken). The vegetables are really chunky and the soup is boiled until it is steaming hot. In fact, it is so hot that you cannot possibly eat it without burning your tongue and inner organs. Here is the challenge: Have I integrated enough into the culture that I am able to eat boiling hot soup, in a boiling hot country, during the hottest part of the day (12pm) and dig into the soup the moment it is served while keeping up with the soup chugging Nicaragüense? The answer is…NO! I have to let my soup cool and/or stick it in the refrigerator. It is just too hot. This is yet another cultural idiosyncrasy that I fail to comprehend. Why serve hot soup? How about a sandwich or chilled pasta salad…just a suggestion. After sweating into my soup I successfully completed my task…eating the entire bowl …mmmmmmmmm “muy rica” (very rich/good)

Sopa de Cerdo (my favorite vegetable is yellow plantain because it is sweet and tastes wonderful in soup).

Later in the day, I discovered there were 2 murciélagos en mi casa (bats in my house). I was told that these bats were not blood sucking vampire bats but simply fruit bats. They were “muy Ruidoso” (very noisy) and people kept asking me if I was “miedo” (frightened). I responded that I am not scared of fruit bats only giant bats that attack my neck. Bats tend to be very loud at night (emitting a high pitched squeak off and on throughout the nightime) and they are also “sucio” (dirty). After taking pieces of my tile roof off, the “chavalos” (youths) found the poor helpless sleeping creatures and threw them to the ground (about a 20 foot drop). Then children on the street bludgeoned the bats to death. To conclude, I will sleep better without the bat noise but I do feel a bit guilty that the bats were so brutally disposed of on my behalf (I thought maybe we could just relocate the bats to a new fruit filled tree).

I awoke early on Tuesday to the sounds of fireworks being shot off in front of my house. There are always fireworks at night; however, for there to be fireworks in the morning it can only mean one thing…una fiesta! In fact, I had guessed correctly because I found out that school had been canceled in order to celebrate. In Nicaragua there are celebrations all of the time for: saints, teachers, students, historical figures and other random people/events. The whole month of December is one big celebration. The truth of the matter is if there is something or someone that can be celebrated then school is canceled and a party is organized. It can be frustrating to work in these conditions, because when class is constantly canceled students don’t receive classes. As a teacher, I now have a certain amount of information I have to cover, and it feels like I never have enough time to cover all the topics. The truth is there isn’t enough time. Between canceled classes and having to review a majority of the previous class, I run out of time before I have really started.

This week I am also dog sitting for un perro se llama Clavo (a dog named Clavo). Clavo belongs to a married PCV couple. Therefore, Clavo is unlike any other Nicaraguan dog I have encountered. It is nice to have the company of a friendly dog that is not trying to chase me down the street. Clavo is very sweet. A lot of volunteers have various pets (cats, dogs, chickens, pigs, and horses). Right now, I am just happy dog sitting but in the future I will have to think about getting a chicken coup going...but I decided that I do not want any roosters because they are too noisy.

The soundtrack for my bus ride today consisted of the song “Come on Baby do the Conga,” which was skipping every other word because the bus was traversing through very rocky terrain (there is a highway being built and in the next year I expect it to be a smooth ride). There was also a T.V. on this big yellow school bus. It was a fairly large television positioned in the front of the bus. It was playing various reggaetone music videos by Daddy Yankee. Therefore, my ears were able to multi-task and listen to Gloria sing the Conga and Daddy Yankee rap about gangster life.

I taught a class called “Mi Vida en 10 Años” (My Life in 10 Years). This is a life skills class intended to get students thinking about their future after high school (where they will live, if they will have a family, further education opportunities, work, etc.). The overall class went well except for a few boys in the back of the room that were too cool to participate. The other half of the class suffers from “pena.” This is a word I hear almost on a daily basis… “los alumnus tienen pena” (the students are shy). To conquer the shyness and the “too cool for school” attitude I require the help of una pelota (a soccer ball), which I throw at kids to get them to participate. I am not hitting the kids with the ball, but instead tossing the ball to them to catch. This tactic seems to be work well, it also helps that the soccer ball is almost deflated…therefore there is no chance that I can knockout any of my students! In order to get back to my town today, I had to hitch a ride. The people were not strangers but friends of friends and they brought me all the way to my house and gave me lollypops! This is just another example of the friendly and helpful people of Nicaragua.

In preparation for dinner I went to my local bean lady and purchased 2 tazas (2 cups) of frijoles (beans). For only 3 cordobas (15 cents) I received pre-cooked red beans, which I paired with a tuna noodle casserole. I also made a fruit salad consisting of 1 giant watermelon, 7 bananas, and 6 apples all for under $1…buen provecho (bon appetite)!

To drink I had ZUKO, it’s similar to the popular Astronout engineered drink Tang. However, ZUKO is made in Chile with such flavors as “sabor a mora” (flavor of blackberry). Yo prefiero sabor a manzana y limon (I prefer apple and lemon flavor).

Thursday, I was walking down the street in search of the perfect ice cold fresco (which I will describe in detail later), when I was pulled aside by someone I had met several weeks ago. He is a teacher at another local school, and he had an urgent question to ask me…it was far from what I expected. He pulled numerous printed emails out of his backpack (bolsa or moleta). Turns out he was sent “spam” regarding a get rich quick pyramid scheme supposedly based out of San Francisco, California. He thought it was a legitimate company because there was a phone number and an office address. He was ready to send what little money he has to this company, and he was asking me for advice. I was immediately alarmed, and told him to never send money to these fraudulent internet/email based companies. I explained that no money can be made from these schemes and the truth was he would only lose all of his money (no matter how much money the “spam” company promised he would make). He heeded my advice, but now I am concerned that other people could also be had by these spammers. Therefore, I am going to try to start a computer class that will inform people how to use the internet while alerting them of possible internet predators. It is helpful that there are cyber cafés (4 internet cafés in my small town alone), but I feel people do not have the necessary knowledge to guide them safely through the World Wide Web.

Now back to that fresco…a fresco is a popular iced beverage, which is made from fresh everyday. They can be purchased from street vendors in the neighborhood, on a bus, on the side of the road…basically anywhere! There are an infinite amount of flavors but some of the most popular are orange, pineapple, milk with banana, guava, cacao, and chocolate. They cost C$3 to C$7 (cordobas) or $.16 to $.40 (U.S. cents). A fresco is always served in a thin plastic bag tied shut with a knot on top and sometime a straw. To drink the beverage you bite into the side of the bag and squeeze the drink into your mouth or simply sip through the straw. It is refreshing and delicious. I finally found my favorite fresco vendor, and I bought an iced cold freshly made banana milk fresco, which was perfect for a hot day.